Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-01-06
Farmers Diaries in Winter.

Practical Farmer.
1t is more convenient for most small
farmers to have the largest flow of milk
during the season when cows can get
fresh grass in the pasture. The great
majoriy of farmers COWS drop their
calves in the spring, and are so nearly
dry the following winter as to give only
milk enough for the family supply. Yet
it is during the winter season, when the
milk yield is smallest, and probably be-
cause of this fact, that butter and all
dairy products bring the highest prices.
For those who can do SO conveniently it
is good plan to have part of their dairy
drop calves in the autumn, and thus con-
tinue butter making during the entire
winter.
Many suppose it is not possible to make
the best butter in winter. With hay and
stalks as the chief food of COWS it is not
possible.
In all small dairies it is difficult, but
the extra care required, as always is the
case, is well repaid, The thing that many
can do, making fair butter from fresh
COWS giving plenty of milk on June milk
is necessarily poorly paid. To make as
good butter, and have it fresh in the mid
die of winter, is much more remunera-
tive. There will not be so much of it,
for with the warmest quarters and green
food there will be some shrinkage in
milk. And this will not be entirely offset
by its superior richness in the material
for butter-making.
Where only one or two COWS are kept
in winter, especially if nearly dry and
fed on hay, cream accommodates slowly,
and is liable to be spoiled before it can
be churned. The bitter taste sometimes
found in winter butter may be the result
of rag weed or other weeds in the hay.
Cornstalks are better feed for COWS than
the best of hay. Glover in nutritive
value is richer than the grasses, but even
when green it is not good for butter aud
milk. Turn herd of COWS into the best
red clover pasture, and they will eat the
natural grasses growing in the fence cor
ners close to the ground before they will
touch the clover. When forced to eat the
green clover heritage, both the yield and
quality of milk will be poorer. For win
ter feed, the hay made from the fine Sec
ond growth clover is much better than
the larger first cutting.
Corn in any shape is excellent feed for
mich COWS, especially where butter is the
object. The oil sugar and starch it con-
tains are all carbonace0us compounds,
Identical with butter. A ration of corn
meal, twice a day, with other feed, will
make the milk much richer, and with
most COWS will make the butter better
color. Winter butter at It's best, is apt
to be too white. 1t is not fraud on
consumers to use coloring matter on
well-made, sweet winter butter. The i'm
provement III appearance makes the but
use artificial coloring matter in winter
butter when they make what they use
only on their own tables. If properly
made, winter butter is as good as the best
grass butter. There is no fraud in max
ing it appear as good, providing it is not
sold for what it is not.
The orange carrot is sometimes used
for coloring butter by farmers, but it
is inferior to the artificial butter colors,
which are cheap enough and less difficult
to manage. The juice of the carrot i'm
pairs the keeping quality of the butter,
which other coloring matter does not. If
the carrot is grated up and mixed with
cream before churning, to give the but
thr higher color, the consumer shonld
know the fact. Such butter would be
apt to turn rancid sooner than that on
which no coloring matter would be used.
The true way to use carrots for coloring
winter butter is to feed them to COWS.
Carrots are more easily grown than most
farmers suppose. Their general cultiva-
ton and use will make winter butter
much better in quality.
The advantage of ensilage for COWS is
more in producing milk than butter.
This method OF preserving green herb
age In a succulent state undoubtedly
makes large quantity of milk, but I'M
less it is supplemented with cornmeal or
grain the milk is not proportionally rich.
1t is yet mooted question with practi-
cal farmers whether for making winter
butter a field of corn, ripened with the
grain and stocks we'll secured dry, is not
equal to the same corn cut before matur-
ity and preserved IN the silo. For the
latter method, however, the corn is sown
more thickly and yields a much greater
weight of feed per acre, and this is, per-
haps, the greatest advantage of the enstl-
age system of feeding.
Cows that are being dried off, and
that are to be turned over to the butcher
in the spring, will often pay a consider
able portion OF their keep III their yield
of milk. Fattening COWS, especially
when fed on cornmeal, give extra rich
milk, and it will pay to turn it into but
ter while enough is given to make a
churning per week. But the milking
should be stopped at least two or three
months before the fattening process is
completed.